Books and Papers by Bernard Williams

Books

These are referred to simply by year and page number (e.g., “1972: 2”), except where Williams published more than one book in the same year, in which case we have used the abbreviations indicated.

• 1972: Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• PS: Problems of the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
• UFA: Utilitarianism: For and Against, with J.J.C. Smart, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
• 1978: Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry, London: Pelican.
• 1979: Report of the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship (Chairman: Bernard Williams), Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, reprinted by Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• 1981: Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 1985: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, London: Fontana.
• 1993: Shame and Necessity, Berkeley: University of California Press.
• MSH: Making Sense of Humanity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• WME: World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the ethical philosophy of Bernard Williams, J.E.J.Altham and Ross Harrison (eds.), with “Replies” by Bernard Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. (Scholar)
• 1998: Plato, London: Phoenix.
• 2002: Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• SP: The Sense of the Past: Essays on the History of Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• IBD: In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, Geoffrey Hawthorn (ed.), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
• PHD: Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Collections edited by Williams and others

• Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore, eds., British Analytic Philosophy, London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1966.
• Bernard Williams and Amartya Sen, Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Other Papers by Bernard Williams (not in any of the collections)

• “Democracy and Ideology”, Political Quarterly, 32 (1961): 374–384. (Scholar)
• “Conversations with philosophers — Bernard Williams talks to Bryan Magee about philosophy and morals”, The Listener, February 4, 1971, pp. 136–140. (Scholar)
• “The moral view of politics”, The Listener, June 3, 1976, 705–707. (“Nozick runs the risk of doing the same as many Goldwaterites, of heading nostalgically for an Old West State of nature, but doing it in a Cadillac”, p. 706.) (Scholar)
• “Dworkin on Community and Critical Interests”, California Law Review, 77 (1989): 515–520. (Scholar)
• “Truth in Ethics,” Ratio, 8 (3) (1995): 227–42. (Scholar)
• “Ethics,” in Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject, A. C. Grayling (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, 545–582. (Scholar)
• “Contemporary Philosophy: A Second Look,” in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, N. F. Bunnin (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, 23–34. (Scholar)
• “History, Morality, and the Test of Reflection,” in Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 210–218. (Scholar)
• “The Politics of Trust,” in The Geography of Identity, Patricia Yaeger and Tobin Sayers (edd.), Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996, 368–381. (Scholar)
• “Toleration: An Impossible Virtue?” in Toleration: An Elusive Virtue, David Heyd (ed.), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 18–27. (Scholar)
• “Reasons, Values and the Theory of Persuasion,” in Ethics, Rationality and Economic Behavior, Francesco Farina, Frank Hahn and Stafano Vannucci (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, 66–76. (Scholar)
• “Moral Responsibility and Political Freedom,” Cambridge Law Journal, 56 (1997): 96–102. (Scholar)
• “Stoic Philosophy and the Emotions: Reply to Richard Sorabji,” in Aristotle and After, R. Sorabji (ed.), Bulletin Inst. Class Stud. London, Supplement 68 (1997). (Scholar)
• “Liberalism and Loss”, in The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin, M. Lilla, R. Dworkin, and R. Silvers (eds.), New York: New York Review of Books, 2001, 91–103. (Scholar)
• “Why Philosophy Needs History”, London Review of Books, October 17, 2002, 7–9. (Scholar)

Interviews with Williams

• Donald McDonald, “The uses of Philosophy”, The Center Magazine, November/December 1983, pp. 40–49, available online. (Scholar)
• Stuart Jeffries, “The quest for truth”, The Guardian, November 30, 2002, available online. (Scholar)

Secondary Literature

• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1958, “Modern Moral Philosophy”, Philosophy, 33: 1–19. (Scholar)
• Anscombe, G.E.M., 1958a, “On Brute Facts”, Analysis, 18: 69–72. (Scholar)
• Austin, J.L., 1970, Collected Philosophical Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Ayer, A.J., 1936, Language, Truth and Logic, London: Pelican. (Scholar)
• Blackburn, Simon, 1998, Ruling Passions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Brewer, Talbot, 2006, “Three Dogmas of Desire”, in T.D.J.Chappell (ed.), Values and Virtues: Aristotelianism in contemporary ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 257–284. (Scholar)
• Callcut, Daniel, 2008, Reading Bernard Williams, London: Routledge. (Scholar)
• Camus, Albert, 1942, The Myth of Sisyphus, in A. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Justin O’Brien (trans.), New York: Vintage Books, 1955. (Scholar)
• Chappell, T., 2005, “Critical Notice of Jonathan Dancy: Ethics without Principles”, The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 09 July 2005. [Chappell 2005 Available online] (Scholar)
• Dancy, Jonathan, 2004, Ethics without Principles, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Fricker, Miranda, 2020, “Bernard Williams as a Philosopher of Ethical Freedom”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 50 (8): 919–933. (Scholar)
• Foot, Philippa, 1977, Virtues and Vices, Oxford: Blackwell. (Scholar)
• Geach, Peter, 1956, “Good and Evil”, Analysis, 17: 32–42. (Scholar)
• Geertz, Clifford, 1973, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books. (Scholar)
• Greco, Lorenzo, 2007, “Humean Reflections in the Ethics of Bernard Williams”, Utilitas: A Journal of Utilitarian Studies, 19 (3): 312–325. (Scholar)
• Greenway, William, 2007, “Modern Metaphysics, Dangerous Truth, Post-Moral Ethics: The Revealing Vision of Bernard Williams”, Philosophy Today, 51 (2): 137–151. (Scholar)
• Hare, R.M., 1963, Freeedom and Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Hare, R.M., 1972, Applications of Moral Philosophy, Berkeley: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• Heysse, Tim, 2010, “Bernard Williams on the history of ethical views and practices”, Philosophy, 85: 225–243. (Scholar)
• Jenkins, Mark, 2006, Bernard Williams, London: Acumen. (Scholar)
• Kagan, Shelly, 1989, The Limits of Morality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Kant, Immanuel, 1785, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. (Scholar)
• Korsgaard, Christine, 1996, The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Lloyd, G.E.R., 2007, “Philosophy, History, Anthropology: A Discussion of Bernard Williams, The Sense of the Past”, in D. Sedley (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (Volume XXXII), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 369–378. (Scholar)
• Heuer, U., and G. Lang (eds.), 2012, Luck, Value and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• McGinn, Colin, 2003, “Isn’t it the truth?”, New York Review of Books, April 10, 2003. [McGinn 2003 available online] (Scholar)
• McNaughton, David, 1988, Moral Vision, Oxford: Blackwell. (Scholar)
• Moore, Adrian, 2003, “Williams on Ethics, Thick Knowledge, and Reflection”, Philosophy, 78: 337–354. (Scholar)
• Moore, Adrian, 2006, “Maxims and thick ethical concepts”, Ratio, 19: 129–47. (Scholar)
• Moore, G.E., 1903, Principia Ethica, T.R. Baldwin (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1878, Human, All Too Human, R. Hollingdale (trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. (Scholar)
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1889, Twilight of the Idols, R. Hollingdale (trans.), London: Penguin, 1967. (Scholar)
• Nozick, Robert, 1974, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York: Basic Books. (Scholar)
• Okumu, Joseph, 2007, “Personal Identity, Projects, and Morality in Bernard Williams’ Earlier Writings”, Ethical Perspectives: Journal of the European Ethics Network, 14 (1): 13–28. (Scholar)
• Queloz, Matthieu, 2018, “Williams’s Pragmatic Genealogy and Self-Effacing Functionality”, Philosophers’ Imprint, 18 (17). [Queloz 2018 available online] (Scholar)
• Rorty, Richard, 2002, “To the sunlit uplands”, London Review of Books, 24 (21): 31. (Scholar)
• Raz, Joseph, 2012, “Agency and Luck”, in Heuer and Lang (ed.) 2012, 133–162. (Scholar)
• Ross, W.D., 1931, The Right and the Good, Oxford: Clarendon. (Scholar)
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1971, “The Thinker of Thoughts: What is ‘Le Penseur’ Doing?”, in his Collected Papers (Volume II), London: Hutchinson, pp. 480–496. (Scholar)
• Sidgwick, Henry, 1874, The Methods of Ethics, London: Macmillan, 4th edition, 1890. (Scholar)
• Singer, Peter, 1972, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1: 229–243. (Scholar)
• Singer, Peter, 1993, Practical Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Singer, Peter, 1997, How Are We To Live?, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Skorupski, John, 2007, “Internal reasons and the scope of blame”, in Thomas (ed.) 2007, 73–103. (Scholar)
• Sleat, Matt, 2007, “Making Sense of Our Political Lives — On the Political Thought of Bernard Williams”, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 10 (3): 389–398. (Scholar)
• Smyth, Nicholas, 2018, “Integration and authority: rescuing the ‘one thought too many’ problem”, The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1: 1–19. (Scholar)
• Thomas, Alan (ed.), 2007, Bernard Williams: Contemporary Philosophers in Focus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Tollefsen, Christopher, 2004, “Basic goods, practical insight, and external reasons”, in D.S. Oderberg and T.D.J. Chappell (eds.), Human Values, Basingstoke: Palgrave. (Scholar)
• Wolf, Susan, 1997, “Meaning and Morality,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 97: 299–315. (Scholar)